When you get an email from your bank or phone company asking you to update your information, just delete it, advises Star columnist Ellen Roseman.

In the past week, I received two emails from the Canada Revenue Agency about a tax refund owing to me.

“You have get a Tax Refund on your Visa or MasterCard,” said the first. “Your Refund Amount is $376.05.”

Writing “get” instead of “got” tipped me off, as did the fake email address, tax.refund@cra.cg.ca . If correct, it would have said “gc.ca.”

The second email said: “After the last annual calculations of your fiscal activity, we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund 376.05.”

No dollar sign in a CRA email? That was a warning, along with “fiscal” — which refers to government revenue and debt, not personal activity.

Fraud artists send such emails to arouse your curiosity.

They want you to click a link to find what bonanza awaits you and how to get it.

You can spot a bogus email by placing your cursor or mouse over the link to see the URL or Web address. When I did that, I found the email links had nothing to do with the CRA, www.cra-arc.gc.ca . Not even close.

Albert Lee, a Bell Canada spokesman, provided that helpful tip when I asked him about emails that purportedly came from his company.

The email said it was from “Bell Canada (mail to: confirmation@bell.ca ).” The subject line said “Bell Canada Transaction Error.” The headline said, “Your monthly bill cannot be processed.”

Claiming to be a second notice about payments not being made, the email asked recipients to ensure their service was not interrupted by clicking a “Log In” button to update their billing information.

When I ran my mouse over the Log In button, I found a suspicious link: http://accoinformation.com/acrodev/ The link goes nowhere, showing how quickly Bell moved to combat the threat to its brand.

“Our security team has taken steps to stop it, including dealing with the hosting company through which it has been operating,” Lee said last week. “We take these matters very seriously and investigate immediately.”

Customers should be aware that Bell doesn’t send emails asking them for personal information, Lee said. Scams can be reported to abuse@bell.ca .

Frank Chow, a Bell client who received the email, thought he had to update information on a credit card that had passed its expiry date. He clicked the Log In button without hesitation.

“The next screen also looked authentic, but after I scanned the required fields, I thought that Bell had no right to require such personal and detailed information,” he said.

“I took a screen shot and was going to send it to the Privacy Commissioner, Jennifer Stoddart. That’s when I noticed the URL was not Bell.ca. I realized it was a scam to steal information that could be used for identity theft.”

This is known as phishing or brand spoofing. Scammers use email lures to “fish” for passwords and financial data from a sea of Internet users.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre knows about the Bell phishing scam intercepted last week. Its staff deal with 120,000 calls and 480,000 emails from the public each year.

“Your bank won’t send you an email asking for personal information and telling you to open a link.”

Phishing is a type of mass marketing fraud. It’s unlike the Nigerian advance fee fraud — popularized in the Giller Prize novel, 419 by Will Ferguson — which targets high net worth individuals.

The name 419 comes from the section in the Nigerian criminal code that deals with obtaining money under false pretenses.

“These 419ers, they prey on people’s dreams,” said a detective in Ferguson’s novel. “Average loss in a 419 scam is somewhere to the tune of $250,000 — often more. The going rate for dreams, apparently.”

The book, a Canadian bestseller, takes readers across the ocean to learn the dirty truth about gangs running 419 scams. Its heroine also flies to Africa to get revenge.

Robertson hasn’t read the novel yet, but he’s on a waiting list at the library to get it. He hopes it will bring more attention to the prevalence of scams — and the naïve people who fall for them.

Ellen Roseman writes about personal finance and consumer issues. You can reach her at eroseman@thestar.ca . Her new book, Fight Back, is available at bookstores and online at StarStore.

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